The Lightman Group is Dead
by Kate Herrick
Summary: An experiment to work some of the discussion in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead into Lie to Me. Yes, I know it's silly.


Thanks to everyone who reviewed my slash piece! (By the way, reviewer who was frustrated by slash, I think fanfiction is about creating what you want to see, rather than writing extra plots within show guidelines. It's a subjective media, one where the truth is in the emergent writing rather than the original creation.) I was glad I wasn't the only one desperately searching for Lie to Me slash. I might write another chapter to this one with Loker/Lightman, but I was too wedded to my concept to work it in here. I could not resist working something from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead into Lie to Me. Please excuse gaping plot holes and awkward moments.

Lightman and his crew had been at the scene since earlier that day, all arriving together in a lie-detecting caravan. Torres had gotten there with the rest of them, and then spent the rest of her time interviewing policemen and women. A girl was threatening to commit suicide, and was perched on the top of an exceptionally tall building. Apparently, even though they had tried to erect a structure to catch her, if she fell wrong onto it there was still a chance she would be injured. The young girl remained on the edge of the building, occasionally crying, but always at the edge and always clutching a white piece of paper in her hand. Torres, starting to feel tired herself, approached her equally-exhausted looking team.

"This can't go on much longer," Dr. Lightman was saying, "Look at her stance. She's serious about jumping, but something's holding her back."

"Presumably, it's the boyfriend with the megaphone," Loker motioned to a young man ten feet in front of them, shouting encouragements for the young girl to come down.

"From what I've heard," Torres readied herself to give her report, "The policemen at the front who can see her the most clearly say after the boyfriend yells up at her she looks down at her piece of paper."

Loker nodded, "From the only available camera, you can see the same thing. We've studied the footage, and we're fairly sure the reason she's so serious about killing herself is on that paper. "

"So what we need to do," Dr. Lightman stared up at the young girl atop the tall building, "Is figure out which way the wind is blowing."

"Sir?" Torres asked, confused.

"To retrieve whatever that is. Even if she jumps, she might drop it on the way down. Without it, we'll never know what or who put her into this state." Loker clarified.

"Well, it's blowing," Torres licked a finger and held it in the air. She pointed to the side of them, smiling a little, "that way."

"Which way is that way," asked Loker, "if we can't tell the police exactly where to position their officers, they'll never catch it."

Sarcasm began to seep into Torres' features, along with annoyance, "Did you bring a compass with you?"

"Hey," Lightman, interrupting his two employee's glares, grabbed coffee from one of his lesser assistant's hands, "where was the sun when we drove in?"

Torres looked up at Loker for clarification. He shrugged and shook his head. He had no idea, either.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Torres.

"Well," Lightman pointed the opposite way that Torres had said the wind was blowing, "If the sun was over there when we drove up to the scene, then that," he pointed to a point between the two points, "would be north."

The two of them were quiet for a moment, at a loss for words and trying to remember the conditions under which they arrived. Loker started to open his mouth, but Lightman interrupted:

"However, if the sun were, uh, excuse me" he moved another assistant out of the way and adjusted himself to where Torres was pointing, "over there, then that would be south, unless either of you remember taking the interstate instead of cutting across town and remember the sun actually being there…"

He squinted at the thoroughly confused looks on his employees' faces and pointed right in front of him, "In which case, we were late, and showed up in the afternoon."

"Why don't we look on a map?" Torres asked, a little annoyed.

"The easy way, huh? That's all you're bringing to the table?" Loker smirked.

"It makes sense. If we just looked it up, we wouldn't be wasting all this time figuring out when we got here or where the sun would be when we got here…" Torres trailed off, incredulous, "I forgot what we were trying to figure out."

Lightman came out of trying to remember their arrival and murmured, "We want to know which way the wind is blowing."

Foster walked up just as he said this with a knowing look in her eye, "Why don't you check again?"

Torres frowned, "What do you mean?"

Now a knowing and intelligent smile broke out upon Foster's face as she informed them: "I talked the girl off the roof. She's willing to show us why she's so ashamed if we promise she won't have to go to court. So, now she's in a boardroom and in there--"

Foster took Lightman's coffee. He shared an annoyed look with Loker before turning back. Foster smiled, adding a seemingly-conjured packet of sugar into the coffee. She finished,

"There isn't any wind."

Torres smirked, as amused as she usually was when Lightman was caught with an error. Lightman turned first to Loker, who made sure his features were schooled into a sympathetic expression, though he couldn't hide the bemusement underneath. When Lightman turned to Torres, he pointed at her, wagging a frustrated finger.

"Now you shut up," he said, "I won't hear any more of your backtalk today. You two decide among yourself who's going to stay and pack up. I'm going home and to bed."

He left. Loker turned to Torres, pulling a coin out of his pocket. She seemed unimpressed.

"What? No 'rock, paper, scissors'?"

"Call it."

"Heads."

He began to flip the coin, then thought better of it and put it into his pocket. Sighing in defeat, he motioned Torres to her car, and she left happily. Once inside, she wondered if the coin were double-sided. Then, she decided it didn't matter; she was going home, and pragmatism dictated that she not scoff at her good fortune.


End file.
